Thanks DD;
The Japanese built a whole series of airfields that covered the entire northern coastline of PNG all of the way from Salamaua to Indonisia and up and around New Britain and New Ireland. The USAAF and RAAF built even more in the drive to oust the Japanese. To get a bit deeper there are still dozens fields that we haven't done or are in the process of creating. Here's a quick partial rundown.
* = I'm either working on it, planning to do something in the future with it or talking to MR about it.
*1. Tadji - Located between Hollandia and But West. (Completed)
*2. Awar - Hansa North (Working on Now) and....
*3. Nubia - Hansa South - Located about half way between Boram/Wewak-Wirui and Alexishafen. Both had substansive Harbor and Suppy facilities for a forward area.
4. Danip - Also known as Alexishafen II. Located just south of the Stock Alexishafen. MS loation on this one is off a bit but not too bad.
*5. Madang - Fighter Strip located about 8 miles south of Alexishafen. The town of Madang can be seen in CFS2's landclass textures.
6. Malahang - secondary field to the East of Lae.
*7. Hollandia - The stock field is not even close to the real location.
*8. Sentani - Hollandia
*9. Cyclops - Hollandia
10. Saidor - A Sod Pre-War Strip developed by the US. Halfway between Alexishafen and Finschafen. A second Crash strip "Yamai" was also there.
11. There are two fields in the Biak Area that MR has not covered yet. Sorido and Owi Island. He has done Mokmer and Borokoe.
*12. There were 8 fields in the PM area. 7 operational and 1 off shore crash strip. I'm looking very hard at doing 5 or 6 of them. 3,5,7,14 and 17 for sure.
And that's doesn't even touch the surface of minor strips, inland strips and those in Indonisian Waters just off of NG. As you can see PNG was covered with airdromes. MS and Add-On developers have hardly put a dent in the total even with all of the ones MR has done.
As to why they didn't build one big field. Three reasons I can put a finger on.
1. Dispersal and Coverage. Don't want all of your eggs in one basket and PNG is a huge area to cover/control.
2. Limited suitable terrain.
3. The Japanese where terrible about building and maintaining large airfields. They never put enough thought or effort into defense and maint.
Jadg and I were talking about this the other night and he brought it up from a book he read called "Fire in the Sky". While the US spent huge amounts of time and effort to construct and develope their fields almost all of the Japanese strips in the PNG area were DIRT strips. No PSP, no Asphalt, just dirt, in a few locations on a coral base, and oil to compact and keep the dust down. Beyond that I don't think they had the machinery or talent to compete with the Allied Airfield Construction Battalions. In most cases when the allies captured an IJA/N Airfield they bulldozed the place and started over.
Back to work. Gotta go mix up the trees at Awar.
Thanks Again DD, glad you are enjoying them.
